Earlier today in Paris, Victoria Broackes, co-curator of David Bowie is and Norbert Hilbich, Head of Application Engineering, Sennheiser, proudly presented the millionth visitor to the David Bowie is exhibition with a David Bowie is collectors’ special edition catalogue containing this personal message from Bowie himself: ‘David Bowie is…amazed at how you worked out where to stand in line to make you 1,000,000th. Well done!!’

Sébastien Dormieu (pictured with Victoria Broackes), the very lucky recipient of the catalogue, also received a pair of Sennheiser special

David Bowie’s game-starting single, Starman, was released in the UK on April 28th 1972.

In case you can’t read it in our montage, the text in the 1972 US “David Bowie Is The Starman” advert reads thus...

“He's thin and he’s English. He's got orange hair and he sings and plays electric guitar. He's got a hit record called “Starman” which is from his new album called “The Rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.” David Bowie. He’s Ziggy Stardust and he is beautiful.”

One of the very best 45s of all time and another Top Ten hit for David Bowie was released this day in 1979, accompanied by an equally brilliant video.

The Bowie/Visconti produced Boys Keep Swinging was a breath of fresh air in a musical landscape dominated by folk taking themselves a little too seriously.

Both the humour and the role reversal of the recording (Guitarist Carlos Alomar played drums and drummer Dennis Davis played bass), transferred perfectly to the David Mallet video, with Bowie taking on the guise of his own female backing singers.